Wayland "Pat" Smith, 72, involved in experimental colleges

Wayland Patrick "Pat" Smith, former chair of the Department of Industrial Engineering and a director of the experimental Collegiate Assembly at UB in the late 1960s, died Jan. 16 in Phoenix, Ariz.

He was 72.

Smith came to UB in 1962 when the then-private University of Buffalo was becoming part of the State University of New York system.

Involved in developing UB's graduate program in industrial engineering, he brought the role of human factors into the curriculum.

Smith was interested early on in the experimental collegiate idea-in which students and faculty members interested in common issues would live and work together in 16 "colleges"-and particularly was involved with C.P. Snow College, which centered on socio-technical problems.

The Collegiate Assembly, conceived in 1966, was established in 1970 by the UB Faculty Senate's Stern Prospectus. Former President Robert L. Ketter named Smith to a two-year term as director in 1970.

Smith was quoted in an interview with The Buffalo Evening News that he was interested in the concept of the collegiate system because it "was one academic way of easing the gap between faculty and students."

Chair of the Department of Industrial Engineering from 1962-67, Smith came to UB from Michigan State University. After his term as chair ended, he returned to the engineering faculty.

He left UB in 1972, later joined the business school faculty at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo and retired from there in 1989.